For I, the Lord, love justice and hate robbery and sin. I will repay them because of my faithfulness; ¹  I will make a permanent covenant with them.

Be happy for Jerusalem and rejoice with her, all you who love her! Share in her great joy, all you who have mourned over her!

Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out and your throats become dry. ¹  But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me because I love those foreign gods ²  and want to pursue them!’

The prophets prophesy lies. The priests exercise power by their own authority. ¹  And my people love to have it this way. But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ² 

My judgment will carry off all your leaders like a storm wind! ¹  Your allies will go into captivity. Then you will certainly ²  be disgraced and put to shame because of all the wickedness you have done.

All your allies have abandoned you. ¹  They no longer have any concern for you. For I have attacked you like an enemy would. I have chastened you cruelly. For your wickedness is so great and your sin is so much. ² 

ב (Bet) She weeps bitterly at night; tears stream down her cheeks. ¹  She has no one to comfort her among all her lovers. ²  All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

ק (Qof) I called for my lovers, ¹  but they had deceived me. My priests and my elders perished in the city. Truly they had ²  searched for food to ³  keep themselves ⁴  alive. ⁵ 

All prostitutes receive payment, ¹  but instead you give gifts to every one of your lovers. You bribe them to come to you from all around for your sexual favors!

I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing in this way: “O Lord, ¹  great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant ²  with those who love him and keep his commandments,

For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will seek out ¹  my lovers; ²  they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine. ³ 

I will destroy her vines and fig trees, about which she said, “These are my wages for prostitution ¹  that my lovers gave to me!” I will turn her cultivated vines and fig trees ²  into an uncultivated thicket, so that wild animals ³  will devour them.

O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly ¹  like the nations, for you are unfaithful ²  to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages ³  on all the floors where you thresh your grain.

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness. I viewed your ancestors ¹  like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season. Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame – they became as detestable as what they loved.

Ephraim was a well-trained heifer who loved to thresh grain; I myself put a fine yoke ¹ on her neck. I will harness Ephraim. Let Judah plow! ²  Let Jacob break up ³  the unplowed ground for himself!

Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! ¹  Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! ²  For you love to do this, you Israelites.” The sovereign Lord is speaking!

Hate what is wrong, love what is right! Promote ¹  justice at the city gate! ²  Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on ³  those who are left from ⁴  Joseph. ⁵ 

Judah has become disloyal, and unspeakable sins have been committed in Israel and Jerusalem. ¹  For Judah has profaned ²  the holy things that the Lord loves and has turned to a foreign god! ³ 

God ¹  said, “Take your son – your only son, whom you love, Isaac ²  – and go to the land of Moriah! ³  Offer him up there as a burnt offering ⁴  on one of the mountains which I will indicate to ⁵  you.”

He will love and bless you, and make you numerous. He will bless you with many children, ¹  with the produce of your soil, your grain, your new wine, your oil, the offspring of your oxen, and the young of your flocks in the land which he promised your ancestors to give you.